In a “David and
Goliath” moment,
Tom Hallman holds
his impressive
Nicholas-Beasley
NB- 3 Gadfly that
placed third in FAC
Giant Scale. He is
joined by Oliver Sand
with his Dime Scale-winning Gadfly. Photo
by Clive Gamble.

Other event winners from the
magnificent field of FAC greats are
summarized in a table for your reference.
Congratulations to Charlie Sauter and
his P-51B Mustang for winning his first
World War II Combat event.

Deals From Diels!

Because this column
reaches you at the start
of the holiday season,
it is appropriate to
discuss the latest vendor
offerings. Although
there are numerous FF
Scale vendors,
I thought you
would appreciate
hearing about
Dave Diels
and Diels
Engineering, Inc.

Dave is a
professional
engineer and
the accuracy
and clarity of his kits reflect it. He has
been updating his line of 1/24-scale kits
with laser-cut parts. His latest effort is
a redesign of Kit No. 47, the Curtiss
P-36A, which now has laser-cut parts,
updating the kit number to 47-LC.

Dave has introduced the Align-O-Tab
construction to aid builders in assembly.
His Curtiss SB2C- 4 Helldiver (kit
number 44-LC) features both laser-cut
parts and the Align-O-Tab method.

All kits ordered from Diels before
December 31, 2015, will receive a 20%
discount from list prices. More from
Diels may be found in the online portion
of this column.

Farewell to William Wylam

June 4, 2015, marked the passing
of noted aviation artist and historian,
William Wylam. Born in Chicago in
1915, William became interested in full-scale aircraft and model building by the
time he was 10 years old.

During the summers of 1933 and
1934, William was a volunteer assistant
to the legendary Paul Garber of the
Smithsonian. As a college student,
William was also a part-time designer for
Cleveland Model & Supply Company,
Comet Models, and several other model
kit manufacturers.

After college, William went on to a
distinguished career as an engineer in the
aviation industry and later for NASA,
from which he retired in 1984 as senior
electrical engineer in the space program.

While at NASA, William received
three prestigious NASA citations for
his work. Some of his wartime aircraft
drawings were criticized as inaccurate,
but the “inaccuracies” were often
intentional because of governmental
security restrictions.

During his professional career,
William published more than 1,500
airplane drawings, wrote 12 books about
airplanes, and held more than 1,200
copyrights and 17 industrial patents.

For more information about William,
see the AMA History Program website
and Gerry Yarrish’s detailed obituary
from his Model Airplane News website
blog dated June 16, 2015. A link is
provided in the “Sources” listing.

SOURCES:

Flying Aces Club News

Rich Weber, editor
se5weber@cox.net

Albatros Aces of World War I

by Norman Franks
http://amzn.to/1NGuyAd

The Unsubstantial Air: American Fliers in the First
World War by Samuel Hynes
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014
http://amzn.to/1JgNgcy
Diels Engineering, Inc.
dielsengr@buckeye-express.com
www.dielsengineeringinc.com
AMA History Project/William Wylam
www.modelaircraft.org/files/WylamWilliam.pdf